fingers. “Okay, what do we know so far?”
“We know the bad guy knows about Pinks. We don’t think there’s a connection, though, unless Dracula was going for a Tony with his act of outrage in front of Mr. Wilde. We also know the sharp-toothed one expects another drawing to show up within the next few days.”
“Which means things might be coming to a head. Too much activity is making our man or woman nervous. And, I’m sorry to say, it doesn’t look good for your beloved old mentor, Professor Angeli.”
“I know. He does seem to be in the thick of things. Alerting his buddies to clear their work out of Pinks because he thinks the heat is going to be put on. Jimmy said he was a nervous wreck at work today. Nathan was smooth as silk. Obviously, his backside is covered. I’ll find out what’s going on in Christine’s head tomorrow.”
“You’re seeing her tomorrow?”
“The wicked three are gathering.” Amanda almost wondered why. At this point, there didn’t seem to be a lot of discussion or deciding to be done. She and Marc had already taken care of that: enjoy each other and then farewell and goodbye.
Oh well, maybe she could regale Cissy and Christine with how she had battled against his advances and then listen to them berate her. That should be good for a couple of laughs.
“Christine is that readable?”
“She trusts me. First mistake.” Amanda felt like a traitor. Gaining her friend’s confidence and then using it to spy on her.
But Amanda also felt pretty certain Christine was not the forger. And she knew that Marc and David agreed. At this point, the best thing to do would be to get this case solved as quickly as possible in order to get her friend out of harm’s way.
They were at the apartment. The super had repaired the door and the locksmith had put in new locks.
Her objectivity crumbled almost the instant the repaired door to David’s apartment swung shut behind them. Amanda stood in the middle of the living room trying to think about what they might throw together for dinner, when Marc came up behind her, smoothed the stray strands loosened from her upswept hair out of the way with his warm palm and kissed the nape of her neck. And she dissolved into a little puddle.
His fingers curled around the once-sleek twist and began to pull it apart, deftly sliding out the hairpins that held it together. Amanda’s lids drifted closed as his fingers pulled the arrangement loose and combed through the released tumble of golden auburn locks, pausing to lightly scratch her scalp.
Little tributaries of excited nerve endings raced down her spine and into her toes. She kicked off the Ferragamos and pulled off her earrings, reaching to drop them on the nearby counter. Marc’s lips caressed her neck and he nibbled on her ear lobes as he pulled her back against his body.
His chest was solid and firm against her aching back. She wasn’t used to heels that high, or bare feet slamming against cracked pavement, or the energy expended in pretending to be European money. It certainly had been an exciting, though exhausting, day. And it was turning even more exciting by the second.
Her mind raced. Should she? She shut it down.
Marc was anything but relaxed. She snickered naughtily, feeling the extent of his excitement pressing against her.
He mumbled into her ear as his hands slid around to cup her breasts, “One thing about guys, they can’t keep a secret.”
“That would be a pretty big secret to try and keep.”
He chuckled into the side of her face, the heat from his breath raising tiny goosebumps which cascaded down her neck and skittered down her arms.
The pressure of his hands against the firmness of her breasts was urgent and filled with repressed longing. He knew their shape and texture, he had explored their landscape with his mouth and his hands and his stubbled cheeks. Now he rediscovered them, taking gentle but firm measure, probing their softness and bulk with the pressure of his fingers, receiving their weight into the enveloping cup of his hands.
Amanda’s chest swelled with the luxury of his touch. She pressed into his embrace. He was such a strong, gentle lover. Her heart burst with pride at having found him.
Even for a short while.
He seemed lost in filling his palms with the imprint of her breasts, as if to etch their carriage and weight into the memory of his life lines.
Amanda longed to feel his hands on her bare skin. Her shallow breath came quickly, urging him on. The delicacy with which he peeled the layers of clothing from her body seemed to float her off the floor, lightening her, rising her into the air as each piece fell from her.
He unbuttoned the fitted jacket, slipped the fabric belt from its moorings, and eased the garment from her shoulders. His hands moved down her bare arms, raising another legion of goose flesh. She could feel the delicate hairs all over her body rise to trembling attention.
She leaned back against his powerful body, molding herself to its jutting outlines. Marc unbuttoned the myriad buttons on the pale silk blouse, almost the color of her tawny skin, deliciously building her expectation with each released clouded mother-of-pearl oval, until her chest rose and fell in heavy anticipation at its ultimate uncovering.
He explored the barely confining lace of her bra, fingers outlining the delicate tracery, slipping seductively under a wired edge, an elastic band, to probe the confined interior. He tantalized her with his wanderings, his claimings, circling the outline of her breasts over and over again until, when he abandoned them momentarily to trace the circling elastic straps and release the hooks, Amanda was beside herself with anticipation.
She plucked the delicate confining cups from her body and stretched luxuriously back against his clothed frame, opening herself to receive his touch. When he spread his fingers and captured her naked skin in his grasp, the breath caught in her throat.
And so it was with the rest of her body. It seemed to be time immemorial that he took in discovering her anew, baring her to sun and sea and sky. His touch was like ice, like fire. When he pressed his lips to her bare buttocks she flushed with an inner release that froze her to the spot.
Somehow Marc became naked, too. The charcoal gray suit pooled roughly at his feet to mingle with her discarded silk, delicate nylon, and the laddered hose. His white cotton briefs came off, his executive length black hose; his berry-brown sculpted muscularity bloomed powerful and rampant, prepared to encompass her own.
Amanda did her own exploring, dropping to shape his jutting calves with her lips, ironing the hard-packed elongated thighs with her cheeks, sculpting the powerful bulges and lean indentations of his rib cage and heaving chest with her pressing, discovering hands.
She couldn’t believe she had made love to this man before; he was an entirely new, blazing being. Confined, contained, frozen to the spot, animalistic, territorial, throbbing as she with barely repressed expectation as if afraid the act of tearing themselves from the circle they had established would destroy the moment.
He produced the ring of protective plastic and she unrolled it on him, fascinated by the rich-colored, throbbing veins, the muscular, engorged flesh that it muted inside its whisper-thin sheath.
Marc plunged into her, lifting her from the floor. She clung to his neck, tenaciously, the steady throbbing of the straining cords beneath her clutching arms. Her breasts flattened and danced over the slabs of his chest, her nipples brushing his as their bodies engaged and released and re-engaged seeking more and more complete union.
She clung, her arms bolted to his lurching frame, her head interlocked with his, her gasping breaths a counterpart to his urgent deep-throated exertion. He had lifted her, her buttocks molded in his powerful grip. Her legs wrapped his lower body, binding them together. Inside, she stroked and clung and urged him deeper and deeper into her very center.
She exploded multiple times. She overflowed and refilled and emptied and plumed until she felt she had cocooned their clutching, upright forms with her blossoming, binding aura.
New. Brand new. Each stroke. Each breath. Each impaling thrust. Each butterfly brush of his lips. They seemed welded. Two melted into one from the heat of their passion. The flames mounting higher and higher.
He erupted in joyous, breathless gasps and staggering lurches of his spasming muscles, rocketing deep into her center, filling her to overflowing with his passion and complete possession.
Sighs of completion rumbled up from deep inside Amanda, low sounds of completion that bubbled over in
